Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 1 2
Results 26 to 32 of 32
  1. #26
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Kelowna
    Posts
    137
    Hey all,
    I'm part of the 2013 class, but our forum seems to be dying as we all heal up.

    Anyways, I'm about a year post op and I felt pretty much back to normal since February, but recently I've been experiencing pretty bad mid/lower back pain as my runs get longer and I started playing tennis again. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this or has any tips or stretches to alleviate the pain.

    Sent from my VS876 using TGR Forums

  2. #27
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Joisey
    Posts
    2,495
    When: I joined the 2014 class last Saturday, August 9th playing lacrosse in the Lake Placid tournament.

    How: I was running laterally (side-stepping) to my left and in the push-off with my right leg, the knee buckled inward. I simultaneously heard a loud knuckle-cracking sound - but much louder than I've ever heard.

    Orthopedist visit this past Tuesday and MRI on Thursday. Results came in yesterday - torn ACL, torn meniscus and a grade 2 MCL sprain. I go back to the ortho on Monday to discuss options.
    Because rich has nothing to do with money.

  3. #28
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Joisey
    Posts
    2,495

    Post Surgery Update

    ACL Reconstruction Surgery on 9/19/2014
    Method of repair: Patellar Tendon Autograft
    Doctor also repaired/stitched the complex tear of the posterior horn of my medial meniscus

    Initial indications from the doc are the surgery went well. I had my post-op visit two days ago and the doctor reiterated the surgery went well and the knee was "looking good". It is still swollen, but he said that it's nothing beyond expectations. Next steps are to start PT (Tuesday) and have a check-up at 6 weeks post-op.

    Some tips to folks going down this path in the future:
    1) If you live in a house with stairs, try to make it so you can live on only one floor for at least a week. For me, this entailed renting a hospital bed (only $160/month) and crashing in the living room.
    2) Try to have someone around to help out 24/7 for at least the first 5 days. I didn't really want to get out of bed.
    3) Pick up a couple of urinal bottles - it's much easier than trekking to the bathroom. Above mentioned "helper" can empty bottles for you.
    4) The cold therapy unit (a GameReady in my case) was really helpful to start, but the amount of heat generated by my knee couldn't be cooled sufficiently with the GameReady without freezing the rest of my leg. A couple of old school ice bags (get the latex ones from Amazon for like $15 - they don't leak) did the trick in combination with the GameReady.
    5) Even two weeks post-op, my knee is still throwing off a ton of heat. I was so concerned about the heat (think, INFECTION), that I called the doctor two days post-op and was reassured it was normal - as long as I wasn't running a fever, there was no discoloration in my leg and there was no discharge from the incision site(s).
    6) Try to do "pre-hab" before surgery. I was able to get full extension and 145 degrees of flexion before going into surgery. Everyone I spoke with said this will considerably help my rehab. I think they're right... I've been at full extension since the day of the surgery.

    I'll continue to try to give updates on my status and any other things I think will help others in the future.

    -spanky
    Because rich has nothing to do with money.

  4. #29
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Posts
    4

    Question Anyone use a brace for skiing after ACL surgery? If so, custom one? Which brand?

    I tore my ACL tele skiing in Feb 2014, had surgery in Mar and am planning to return to tele skiing this season in late Feb after doing all the training I possibly can to get over the psychological hurdle of never wanting to go through this epic healing process again!

    My question is: BRACE for skiing? Custom brace? Which one?

    Anyone have any specific experience using a brace post ACL surgery for telemark?

    Looking forward to hearing from you!

  5. #30
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Joisey
    Posts
    2,495
    Not much activity in this thread but I'll give an update on my status. Yesterday was 12 weeks post-op for me. Recovery is going slowly but I am seeing consistent progress. My battle at this point is increasing my flexion (132* yesterday) while still maintaining full extension. Recently, while doing flexion movements (heel slides), I get the feeling like I have a bone on bone impingement on the outside of my knee. Kind of like my fibula is bumping up against my femur. My PT has been working on loosening the muscles around the top of my fibula to get it to move more freely. Speaking of tight muscles, my other battle is the imbalance caused by still favoring my repaired knee and my inability to stretch my quads due to lack of flexion. If I sit too long in one position (greater than 30 minutes), my hip starts to scream.

    One minor set back about a week ago where I pulled my calf muscle while doing heel slides... I was pulling so hard that I didn't realize I was over-flexing my calf and it went "pop". This caused quite a bit of swelling and discomfort in the calf for about a week. The muscle is still sore but healing.

    Otherwise, I remain positive as I'm still seeing gains in strength, flexibility as well as reduction of swelling and pain. I expect another two to three months of PT.
    Because rich has nothing to do with money.

  6. #31
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Bear den
    Posts
    895
    32/male.
    December 5, 2014, I tore my right ACL/MCL.
    Surgery Dec 24, exactly 1 week ago. First PT sess two days ago, have another in a few hours.

    Last Feb (2/14) I had a high grade MCL tear in right knee after a just barely under rotated backflip into my previous bombhole. 6 weeks rehab/PT and I was back on snow and went to AK in mid April. While there I had two major crashes with locked out Dynafit toes and my knee felt fine...talk about testing it! Summer and fall included lots of MTB and hiking.

    This winter the ski season started quickly here in JH, and on Dec 5 the tram opened. Coverage was quite good. Good enough that after a couple OB laps a friend and I went into the clouds and had a look at a line on Cody called Once Is Enough. We were able to billy goat through and had a great time of it, but it was puckering and fully focused (rocky/steep/no fall zone). 20 min later as we're down into the less consequential fun pow in Pinedale, I let loose and start slarving pow turns at moderate speed through medium spaced pines. On a left turn around a group of trees, I let my downhill (right) ski tip get up on my other tip and promptly washed out onto my left side. On my side, I tumbled fall line and was promptly stopped by a tree to my knees. Feet on skiers right, body on skiers left. Skis remained attached and the hit was violent enough that I was worried I might have done structural damage or dislocated something down there. Upon extricating myself I could feel instability similar to my MCL from last winter, but the pain of the impact was most noticeable. I kept skis on and slowly traversed my way back to the base with help from my buddy.

    I limped around for about a week and got swelling down, then saw my doc and got an MRI. I was gutted when I heard ACL, but realize that I'm lucky that I haven't dealt with this much before and it could always be worse. He feels best about hamstring graft, so on Christmas eve I had it done. While in there he didn't feel great about the MCL reattaching at the femure due to the amount of scar tissue from my previous accident, so he attached it with 2 sutures.

    First 20 hours felt "great" and kept the knee in the big immobilizer brace and started into leg raises. Days 2-7 have been spent with the Kodiak Cooler on for at least 12 hrs/day, elevating. I'm now off the slow release oxycontin and have another days worth of oxycodone, transitioning to Tylenol. The greatest pain come from standing to go to the bathroom and the pressure in my knee builds up and throbs for about 2 minutes before chilling out. I've been doing a lot of leg lifts, TENS, propped ankle hangs, heal slides with band assistance. 2 days ago I was approx 2-3º away from full extension and roughly 75º flexion. I've got my trainer set up but not able to get a "real" rotation without scary pain, so I'm just using it to gently press into the flexion.

    In this first week I'm pretty amazed at how variable the pain & my capabilities are. I like all the little goals to try to reach, and I'm excited about PT. Going to Excel across from Pearl St Bagels in Jackson. I worked with them last winter and they're quite awesome.

    I gotta peruse and read through other ACL threads. Cheers to Gimp Central!

    Edit- earlier this morning I took my first good poop (day 7). The past two mornings I think I passed some sort of truffle. I've been rocking high fiber meals and stool softeners since immediately after surgery. I looked at how long my post was and thought "why not give more information than they want"...
    Last edited by SkiJunky05; 12-31-2014 at 11:18 AM. Reason: I pooped.

  7. #32
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    SLCizzy
    Posts
    3,554
    Sorry to hear it SkiJunky. No doubt you will be crushing PT, maybe try not to overdue it. My doc here in SLC had a rather conservative start to PT which I was a bit skeptical of, but ultimately in talking to some folks that stretched their graft prematurely when getting after PT early on, it seems like it was a good approach. ROM was a bit of a challenge once things got going, but it eventually worked out....lots of weighted prone hangs starting about 3 weeks after surgery. Just my experience, YMMV.

    I'm 11 months out from surgery at this point, and skiing feels great. I'm using a brace this season, just cuz, but I'm fairly sure I could get away without it. Riding bikes last summer was fairly mellow affair, no racing, no Strava-ing, just lots of good times pedaling.

    You should get one of them fancy fat bikes from Aaron at The Hub when the time is right. The first pedal strokes on a bike that moves are some of the finest you will ever experience.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •